In Mizoram, Programmes for Myanmar Refugees Struggle to Survive Amid US Aid Cuts |
Listen to this article:
Until Myanmar’s military seized power in February 2021, Lianbawih (name changed) led a comfortable life as a doctor in Yangon. But because he was strongly opposed to the takeover, he decided to join the Civil Disobedience Movement against the newly installed regime. He remained in Yangon, working under a pseudonym at a private hospital, but was forced to hide every time junta soldiers arrived to carry out one of their routine inspections.
Finally, after three years of living in the shadows, he decided it was time to leave. This came in February 2024, as the junta imposed conscription on men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27.
“The letter calling for my mandatory service came just a week after I left Yangon,” said Lianbawih, 33, who asked that only his first name be used for safety reasons.
He fled to Mizoram, a state in India’s remote Northeast bordering Chin State. There he joined an organisation—which he did not want to be identified for security reasons—that provides free consultations and medicines to refugees. He also worked at a clinic offering free check-ups three times a week.
But the clinic was forced to shut down this year following cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by the administration of President Donald Trump. The agency has long been a core funder of projects on both sides of the border.
In Rihkhawdar, a border town in Chin State controlled by resistance forces, around 70 percent of USAID-linked programs at the Rih Hospital have been indefinitely suspended. The hospital serves residents of more than 100 villages across the Chin Hills as well as refugees arriving from Mizoram.
Dr. Lalzauva, one of 11 doctors at the hospital, told Myanmar Now that they were preparing to shut down a crucial project that provides free healthcare and medicine to pregnant women and children under the age of five. “All our funding has stalled since Trump came to power,” he said.
Further complicating the situation is the tightening of movement along the Indo-Myanmar border by the Assam Rifles (India’s paramilitary force operating in border areas) amid plans to put up a fence between the two countries.
“People in Chin State cannot easily cross into India to get treatment,” said Dr. Lalzauva, adding that the junta has also heavily restricted access to other parts of Myanmar. “So the majority of the population depend on our hospital.”
First established in 2001, the hospital’s operations first came to a grinding halt after the 2021 coup. It reopened on March 15, 2023, after anti-junta resistance forces captured the area from the military. “We were so happy that we could re-open. But now we are facing money troubles,” Dr. Lalzauva said.
Soon after assuming office in January, Trump issued an executive order pausing all US foreign aid for 90 days, reflecting his long-held view that the country spends too much on international assistance. His administration soon pushed for deeper cuts: a roughly 92 percent reduction in USAID funding that would remove nearly US$60 billion from aid programs worldwide, according to the State Department.
In 2024, the United States spent $128.6 million for humanitarian initiatives in Myanmar and an additional $111 million in foreign assistance that supported education, agriculture and governance programs in the war-torn country, according to ReliefWeb.
The agency was projected to deliver $259 million in aid to Myanmar in 2025, with about $172 million, or 72 percent, allocated to humanitarian aid and social programs. But the bulk of that funding has been halted, in a major blow to local providers of basic services to vulnerable populations. If the termination of this assistance continues throughout Trump’s second term, Myanmar stands to lose close to $1.06 billion in American financial aid by 2029, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the country and weakening US influence across the region.
On the Indian side of the border, these cuts have crippled an entire ecosystem of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) supporting refugees, including those not directly funded by the US government.
Even groups that get most of their support from private donors, like Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, are impacted by the sharp decline in USAID funding because of the effect of these cuts on the humanitarian system as a whole.
“For example, when food aid is cut, MSF’s clinics are filled with malnourished children. When shelter programs are cut, MSF does not have anywhere to refer vulnerable patients after they’re discharged from the hospital,” the group said in a statement.
In Mizoram, MSF provides health care to Myanmar refugees, particularly in border areas like Zokhawthar and Lawngtlai District, offering specialist care, running clinics, and distributing aid while also addressing broader health gaps for vulnerable groups........